


Luke: Birthday Cakes

by JustALilSnail



Series: 1000 Ways to Tell the Stoll Brothers Apart and I Can Name You One [27]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Big brother Luke Castellan, First birthday, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Luke POV, Male Friendship, Slice of Life, celebration, genfic, luke trying to be a big bro, one bad word, slice of cake!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-21 02:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20685746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustALilSnail/pseuds/JustALilSnail
Summary: Choosing a birthday cake should not be this hard.





	Luke: Birthday Cakes

**Author's Note:**

> Fluff! Lots of fluff! Fluff is good. Fluff. Is… hard to write. It’s a lot harder than angst in my opinion. Is it too cheesy? Is it too corny? Is it too much? When should I stop?

# Luke — Birthday Cake

Luke (14) - Travis (7) - Connor (6)

May 20th, 2001

Pre-The Lightning Thief

* * *

“Chocolate. Everybody loves chocolate. Trust me, Luke. I babysit toddlers. Chocolate is the way into the heart.”

“Uhh, I don’t know, Lee. Have you ever seen Connor eat chocolate?”

“Travis loves chocolate. I’m sure Connor will too.”

“They’re not the same person.”

Luke has a problem. A big, big problem. Connor’s birthday is tomorrow. The decorations are set. The presents are made. Connor and Travis are blissfully unaware. All that is left now is picking a birthday cake, but the thing is, Luke has no idea what Connor likes. He eats only cereals in the morning, ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch, and chicken pot pies with mashed potatoes for dinner while Travis eats all and everything. 

Sometimes Luke catches Connor snacking on an occasional cheeze its, but Connor hides it as soon as he notices someone is watching. 

There’s no such thing as a cereal, sandwich, mashed potato, cheeze it flavored cake. 

Annabeth also doesn’t know what Connor likes in a cake. But Lee guarantees him chocolate is the way to go and promptly filed a paper to take him out of Camp to the nearest bakery on his bike. 

Now that he’s here and all these cakes are staring him in the face, none of them scream like something Connor will like. 

“This one.”

“No.”

“That one.”

“No.”

“How about this one?”

“No.” 

Lee picks up the nearest thing beside him. “Let’s just give him a cupcake then. It’ll be easy to finish if he doesn’t like it.”

But Luke shakes his head. They have to get something Connor will like. 

Lee rolls his eyes and spins on his heel to face him. “Come on, Luke. Connor is a kid and kids love anything that is sweet. The sweeter it is, the better.”

“Except Connor is a kid with issues.” Luke bends to explain the cakes on the bottom row. Taro cake. Mousse. Cheesecake. “He’s a picky eater. He’s wary of everything. Do you know Connor still sleeps with his taser in his hands? It’s been five months since he got here and he still thinks we’re going to hurt him or Travis. I think it actually got worse after April Fools day.”

Lee halts in the aisle and scratches his head apologetically. “... So my prank might have been in poor taste.”

Luke rolls his eyes. “You think?”

“But he’s getting better! He actually asked me to teach him an instrument a couple weeks ago and now I’m teaching him piano this week. That’s tremendous progress. Actually, I think he’s teaching Travis too. I catch them together sometimes in the music room. Do you think Travis is too shy to ask me?”

Luke pushes down the disgusting head of jealousy, biting his cheeks to stop a thoughtless response. He stares at the cakes for a few seconds and counts down from five, slowly saying, “Connor is nice to you. He even warmed up to Annabeth. Chris too, sort of, but he still hates my guts. I have no idea why.”

“Really? Did you make him mad?”

“No.”

“Were you disrespectful of his personal space?”

“No.”

“Maybe he feels something is off about you,” Lee jokes. 

“Or maybe it’s your overbearing enthusiasm seeping into me. I need to stop hanging out with you. Goodbye forever, Lee,” Luke ribs back, walking away to see more of the cakes. 

“Hey! Me and my enthusiasm are going to bike you and your cake back to camp! You better apologize or my enthusiasm will be too sad to pedal back. We will have to walk back,” Lee threatens, running to catch up to Luke and wincing when shoppers and employees alike glare at them. 

Luke snorts. Like all-bark-no-bite Lee will ever follow through with his threat. 

A cake catches his eye. 

His gut is telling him to get this one. Thalia followed her gut instinct to follow the goat and it led her to him, to Aegis, and to Annabeth. It had never steered her own. His shouldn’t either. 

“I want that one, please.”

* * *

  
  


Something off… about him?

What?

Why would there be something off with him?

* * *

  
  


May 21st

His gut was wrong. 

His gut was so, so, so wrong. 

Fuck his guts. 

“So… you don’t like your birthday cake?” Luke says dejectedly, watching the way Connor’s nose wrinkles with disgust. 

“Connor doesn’t like M&Ms,” Travis answers for him, smiling brightly. “But I’ll eat all of it! I love chocolate.”

“Woah, who would have guessed?” Lee says unhelpfully. 

“It looks like an abomination,” Annabeth adds, also unhelpfully.

“This is the ugliest cake I have ever seen. Why would you buy this?” Chris states, landing the punch that shatters his fragile sense of self-worth.

“Okay, well, since none of you liked it, only Travis and I will get to enjoy it,” Luke snaps, tugging the cake closer to him. 

“Oh come on, Luke.”

“We’re sorry. Let us have a bite.”

Lee and Chris apologize immediately while Annabeth is listing point by point how ugly the cake looks, how the baker failed in aesthetics, and how she would have improved it. 

This whole situation is a mess. 

Embarrassing. Horrifying. There are no words to describe how mortified he feels. Luke wishes he could go back in time and slaps himself in the face. 

Lee and Chris are still apologizing. Annabeth is on his left asking him to lower the cake so she can critique it better. Travis is digging through the bakery bag for the plates and forks. Connor is on his right staring up at him with this look in his eyes that screams, _ ‘WHY?’. _

Why, indeed, did he ever decided him buying the cake was the best plan when Lee knows what children love the best? When Lee probably, undoubtedly, has a secret power to get people to like him and his gifts? When Lee could have made Connor’s first birthday at Camp Half Blood a special event rather than this crappy one?

“Luke?” Connor asks and oh, here goes. Time to have his beaten self-worth trashed even more. 

“Why did you buy the cake?”

Why? Because I thought you would finally like me, but he can’t very well say that. It sounds like something a creeper would say. 

“Because you’re my little brother and I wanted to do something special for your— No! I’m not going to lower the cake so you can see it better! Nobody except me and Travis are going to eat it. Lee and Chris, you guys get out of here — I wanted to do something special for your birthday. Sorry, I picked a cake you didn’t like.”

Connor’s face twist into an expression he couldn’t read. But Travis’s smile brighten and he nudges Connor in the arm. “I told~ you! I’m right yet again—ack!”

Connor shoves Travis face first on top of the bed, face reddening. He stabs a fork in the cake, takes a bite, and makes the most disgusted face ever. But he swallows it. 

“Thanks,” Connor mutters under his breath before pulling Travis by the wrist to run out of the cabin, probably to Zeus’s Fist. 

Annabeth tugs on his shirt. 

“You’re the first person Connor ever said thank you to,” she points out. 

And Luke couldn’t help his big, fat grin. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!  
I’m, uh, kinda floored by the reviews/comments on the last chapter? I kinda cried reading each of them and squealed in ecstasy to my friends, my parents, and my brothers about them? I’m kinda actually scared to post the next few chapters now in fear they will be shitty in comparison? I kinda should kick my posting anxiety to the curb? I kinda should stop rambling. I’m going to stop.  
I can’t find the words to describe how thankful I am. I wish there was a machine to translate how I feel into words T-T


End file.
